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feature
2022 Specialized Aethos Comp Bike at Bedtime - 1Check out the Specialized Aethos Comp, the most affordable option in the lightweight lineup
Aethos is Specialized’s lightest road bike range and this Comp model, built up with SRAM’s Rival eTap AXS, is the most affordable option in the lineup, priced at £5,000.
You can hardly have missed the Aethos when it was launched a little over a year ago. Specialized boasted that the top-level S-Works version was “the lightest disc brake road bike ever” with a FACT (Functional Advanced Composite Technology) 12r Carbon frame weighing just 588g (56cm version).
> Specialized releases Aethos: “the lightest disc brake road bike ever”
A couple of weeks later, Specialized announced other Aethos models featuring a cheaper Fact 10r carbon frame. This frame still comes in at a claimed 699g. We wonder how many iterations it took to get under 700g. It’s this Fact 10r carbon frame that’s used for the Specialized Aethos Comp.
> Specialized Aethos Pro and Expert models announced with 699g frame weight
Specialized says that the Aethos is aimed at riders who prioritise handling and ride quality above aerodynamics – you won’t find any Kamm tail tube profiles here – and who want the ultimate high-performance road bike unrestricted by competition rules. Although it has UCI approval and has seen competition at the highest level, the Aethos isn’t primarily intended as a race bike. For a start, in some builds it’s too light, weighing in above the UCI’s 6.8kg minimum limit for racing.
When designing the Aethos, Specialized engineers Peter Denk and Sebastian Sevet felt that the bike industry’s understanding of how forces flow through a frame was incomplete and that there was potential for massive improvements.
They thought they could improve on the ride experience while delivering a super-light frame, but required what Specialized describes as “staggeringly large supercomputer simulations” to work out the optimum tube shapes.
“We used [these supercomputer simulations] to subtly alter round tube shapes,” says Specialized. “This made them more conical in key areas to deliver huge gains in stiffness and balance with the minimum amount of material.”
Peter and Sebastian decided that there must be no ‘lazy fibres’ in the finished design. In other words, every fibre should be loaded and tense – doing a job – rather than just adding weight.
When we reviewed the Specialized Aethos Pro – a bike that uses the same Fact 10r carbon frame as the Specialized Aethos Comp – we said: “What a bike! If you have the cash and don't care about aerodynamics, buy it.”
> Read our review of the Specialized Aethos Pro
What’s so good about the Aethos?
“The ride is truly stunning, with acceleration I've never felt before and handling that's just spot on,” said our reviewer Liam Cahill. “Make no mistake, this is the gold standard for general road bikes. And despite what Specialized says, it's a race bike if you want it to be – just add deeper wheels.”
Liam felt that the Aethos was “noticeably snappier” than other superbikes he’s tested and that Specialized had nailed the handling.
“The tight wheelbase ensures the bike is very nimble, and it's brilliant for coming back down those steep and twisty hills,” he said. “The Aethos frame is on a whole other level when it comes to ride quality.”
All good, then? Not quite.
“It’s disappointing to find no power meter and the price is very high compared to rivals,” said Liam.
He was talking about a £7,250 model fitted with a Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset.
The Specialized Aethos Comp pictured here is built up with SRAM’s Rival eTap AXS groupset. A £5,000 bike with a third-tier groupset might seem mad, but Rival eTap AXS is great stuff providing very good wireless electronic shifting and impressive braking.
> Read our review of SRAM Rival eTap AXS here
Specialized doesn’t throw in Rival’s crankset-based power meter but it’s a relatively cheap upgrade – you just need to buy the non-drive-side crank and the spindle containing the power meter (the RRP is £230 but you’ll find it cheaper online).
> Read our SRAM Rival AXS Power Meter review
We can’t give you an exact weight for the Specialized Aethos Comp but the Specialized Aethos Pro Ultegra Di2 that we reviewed came in at 6.66kg.
Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.
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22 comments
You mean "below" the UCI's 6.8kg minimum limit.
The range-topping Aethos is a sensational bike at a sensational price. But this Comp version has lost the wow factor. It's still a hell of a lot of money but the weight has gone up to only just sneaking in under the UCI weight limit.
Lovely bike, and no doubt a great responsive (& comfy) ride but.....worth £2300 more than the Boardman SLR 9.4 with the same groupset - as 1 example ?!
....on the 'thinking' that the avg rider may not wholly benefit from it being a marginally better ride & a probable kilo lighter.
That is defo a lot of cash.
That is a beautiful bike, fair play.
Its funny ones persons beauty is another ones dull. I should like its sheer simplicity and elegance but my brain is just going meh.
I'm a big fan of nice classic lines, probably the reason that I find most Pinarellos slightly nauseating!
We are being seriously ripped off by the whole industry.
Agree with this bike - and the new Cannondale Synapse.
"£5,000 bike with a third-tier groupset might seem mad, but Rival eTap AXS is great stuff." No, it is mad. Totally mad.
The Synapse with Tiagra is £2,400......that's just nuts. 5-6 years ago that would get you an Ultegra version.
True, though having recently ridden a bike with the latest Tiagra on it I'd say there is very little difference in terms of quality and smoothness of operation between it and five years ago Ultegra. Perhaps we all need to get away from label fixations…
This line single handidly demonstrates a load of things that are wrong with the cycing world.
£5,000, for a bike, is not in the slightest bit affordable for the vast majority of people.
Instead of 'most affordable', please us 'least expensive', although there are probably stronger phrases that could be used given we are talking about a road bike that costs £5k.
I'll say, stupidly overpriced.
I thought I'd splashed out on a once in a life time bike, Giant Defy Advanced Pro 2 with Ultegra Di2 and carbon everything at just over £3000. Obviously I am not a racer, but I doubt many buyers of top end bikes are. It's just about to have its 5th birthday, had to spend about £1000 on maintenance over the 5 years (nothing there that wouldn't have to be spent on any bike at the 5k miles a year including winter use until this year).
This certainly is out there at the thinning end of the diminishing returns tail on the graph.
Fortunately, I look around and "mid-range" bikes around the £2k mark are often excellent. I also think the move to disc has actually made cycling more affordable, I would have bought at least one set of new wheels by now (£1000 a pop for equivalents) instead of one rotor.
Yes it's always worth remembering that many bike components are consumable (chains, derailleurs, chainrings, bottom brackets, pads) and the more high end the bike the more expensive replacing these parts will be.
So pushing the budget for that campy groupset also means committing to increased maintenance costs
Not necessarily, I'm finding that Chorus chains and cassettes last more than twice as long as Ultegra versions did.
It's not meant for the vast majority of people though is it? There are thousands of bikes out there that fall under the 'affordable' category regardless of where you draw the line...in fact there are vastly, vastly more bikes out there that are 'affordable' then there are bikes like this, which are not for many.
So why so angry at this one bike? Chill and understand that for evrry product in existance, there are cheap and expensive options.
It wasn't the bike they were taking issue with - it was the use of the word 'affordable'.
Exactly that. Plus a £5,000 bike with a 3rd tier groupset.
Also, I can't get away from the feeling that this bike looks very much like the Allez/Tarmac of a decade ago.
I think you're just a bit behind the times - that's what 'affordable' means these days. Like when they say "At least 20% of the new development will consist of affordable homes"...
you may want to expand that to everything....any consumer item...and over consumption in general. And lets not even talk about houses. The price is not the only way to look at things.
Exactly - my comment above agrees! Do Road CC, and other cycling journalists, lose all perspective about cost/affordability because they get to test ride seriously expensive bikes all the time?
managed to get hold of one of these last summer after my old bike was crashed. The reviews are right. great bike and a very enjoyable confident ride. The Rival groupset works well , though Sram replaced the bricked front mech over christmas after a failed firmware update. One of the odd things is how incognito it is - invisible branding means everyone who looks doesnt know what it is.